This is a selection of essential works of Spanish literature, with original title, author and a short note. For context see the history of Spanish literature. Almost all are available in English translation.
Middle Ages and fifteenth century
| Date | Work | Author |
|---|---|---|
| c. 1200 | Cantar de mio Cid, the national epic | anonymous |
| c. 1330 | Libro de buen amor, a merry, irreverent poem on love | Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita |
| 1335 | El conde Lucanor, fifty moral tales | Don Juan Manuel |
| c. 1477 | Coplas por la muerte de su padre, an elegy on transience | Jorge Manrique |
| 1499 | La Celestina, the tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea | Fernando de Rojas |
The Golden Age
| Date | Work | Author |
|---|---|---|
| 1508 | Amadís de Gaula, the most-read chivalric romance | Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo |
| 1543 | Obras, sonnets and eclogues | Garcilaso de la Vega |
| 1554 | Lazarillo de Tormes, the first picaresque novel | anonymous |
| 1599-1604 | Guzmán de Alfarache, picaresque novel | Mateo Alemán |
| 1605-1615 | Don Quixote de la Mancha | Miguel de Cervantes |
| 1613 | Exemplary Novels, twelve stories | Miguel de Cervantes |
| c. 1614 | Fuenteovejuna, a village against a tyrant | Lope de Vega |
| 1613 | Soledades, the masterpiece of Baroque poetry | Luis de Góngora |
| 1626 | El Buscón, picaresque novel | Francisco de Quevedo |
| 1630 | The Trickster of Seville, birth of Don Juan | Tirso de Molina |
| 1635 | Life Is a Dream | Pedro Calderón de la Barca |
Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries
| Date | Work | Author |
|---|---|---|
| 1789 | Cartas marruecas, Spain seen by a Moroccan traveller | José Cadalso |
| 1806 | El sí de las niñas, a comedy on arranged marriage | Leandro Fernández de Moratín |
| 1844 | Don Juan Tenorio, still staged every year at All Saints | José Zorrilla |
| 1871 | Rimas, Spain's best-loved love poems | Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer |
| 1884-1885 | La Regenta, the great provincial novel | Leopoldo Alas "Clarín" |
| 1887 | Fortunata and Jacinta, nineteenth-century Madrid | Benito Pérez Galdós |
Twentieth century
| Date | Work | Author |
|---|---|---|
| 1914 | Niebla (Mist), a character who rebels against his author | Miguel de Unamuno |
| 1912 | Campos de Castilla, poems | Antonio Machado |
| 1914 | Platero and I, a poet and his donkey | Juan Ramón Jiménez |
| 1920-1924 | Luces de bohemia, the theatre of esperpento | Ramón del Valle-Inclán |
| 1928-1936 | Gypsy Ballads, Blood Wedding, The House of Bernarda Alba | Federico García Lorca |
| 1942 | The Family of Pascual Duarte | Camilo José Cela |
| 1945 | Nada, a young woman in post-war Barcelona | Carmen Laforet |
| 1951 | The Hive | Camilo José Cela |
| 1981 | The Holy Innocents | Miguel Delibes |